‘I should never have let us drift apart as we did. I blame myself for that.’ ‘I shouldn’t worry about it, Jinny,’ I said. In fact, Jinny had made tentative moves towards a resumption of...

‘Taken in error,’ Poley said. He threw over a square envelope, with the flap tucked in at the back. ‘A bill. Some hopeful tradesman.’ I recognized Isaak’s writing on the address. The card inside was...

Poley plunged forward and began to swim away from me. ‘Don’t finish that bottle off,’ he called. ‘I’ll want a drink when I get back.’ I watched him until his head was very small, and...

Poley said: ‘Got the bottle? Good. Climb aboard.’ He drove along the coast road, westwards, towards the distant enemy. I let him drive in silence, feeling that in that way he would be most likely...

‘I haven’t been cursed by a priest since Father Reilly caught me doing a mock of his sermon back in Dublin, when I was a girl of eight. This one’s an Italian’ (she pronounced it...

I was always anxious to co-operate with Anna in avoiding subjects about which she was sensitive; sensitivity made her ferocious. But I raised the matter with Dadda in the office one day. I had come...

‘Not that I admire your choice,’ I said bitterly. ‘My choice? David, is your mind as dirty as the others’? You mean you really thought Henry was my lover?’ ‘The poem,’ I said. She had...

‘So she told you it was just a boy-friend, and we had something against him? She’s a liar as well as a slut. Look at that.’ Mamma tossed her the poem. I was standing near...

I had been so concerned with seizing this chance to hit back that I had not considered the implications of the words I had read and was now speaking. I have never had much taste...

I, of course, was engrossed at this time with my own plunge into the world of commerce. Mamma, although not very pleased, was resigned to my joining Dadda in the business. She took me along...